"12 I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 14 I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.
15 What is crooked cannot be made straight,
and what is lacking cannot be counted.
16 I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” 17 And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.
18 For in much wisdom is much vexation,
and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow."
Ecclesiastes 1:12-18
The truth of what was said in the previous Note is well illustrated in some of the greatest literature of the ancients. The Greek tragedians - Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides - give penetrating and indeed devastating analysis of the human problems in all the intensity and complexity and indeed perversity of evil; but they had no real answer to it. This is why their plays read as gigantic monuments of darkness, terror and despair. In this respect they come very close to the Preacher's utterances in this book. Indeed, it would be true to say that no writers have ever come closer than these Greek dramatists to the analysis of the tragedy of human sin and its appalling consequences for all mankind given by the biblical writers. It is the latter alone who proclaim the answer to that tragedy, in the revelation of the gospel. And it is with this that Ecclesiastes shares common ground in the final words of his book, 'Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth ... fear God and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man', words which, rightly understood, proclaim that gospel's message with true hope and confidence.